


Once lost, still findable

by Brynnen, TwaCorbies (Brynnen)



Series: Avengers Recovering and Reassembling [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Bonding, Choosing a side, Comfort, Doing bad things to keep good people safe?, Friendship, Gen, Interrogation, Let the poor protagonists recover!, Mentor/Protégé, Rescue, Shield are not nice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-11
Updated: 2017-10-11
Packaged: 2019-01-16 02:50:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,289
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12333954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brynnen/pseuds/Brynnen, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brynnen/pseuds/TwaCorbies
Summary: Erik Selvig is in Hell. His 'just' reward for Loki's atrocities.Or, Stark Tower's newest scientists come to their new haven.





	Once lost, still findable

Erik Selvig woke with a groan and raised one hand to rub his face, only to encounter resistance. A drip had been inserted into the crook of his elbow and both hands were loosely cuffed to the metal rails of the hospital bed he lay in. Why? A cry of animal despair wrenched from him at his continued imprisonment and the bed rattled as he struggled futilely.

  
'Hey, easy Doc.' A warm, calloused hand pressed his chest down and Erik recognised the man stood over him.

  
'Agent Barton.' The name came out as a muttered rasp.

  
'You remember me? How about what happened?'

  
'Blue, Loki... mind prisoners. Did the portal close?' He jerked upright again in panic at that thought, only for the archer to press him back down into the mattress again.

  
'Nat got it closed thanks to your off switch thing. Clean up's gonna be a bitch, but between you and the Avengers the planet is saved.'

  
'Am I your prisoner, Agent Barton?' His voice was a little stronger and he smacked his lips, grimacing at the sour taste in his mouth.

  
Hawkeye concealed a laugh at the question and instead poured a glass of water. The old guy still had a bit of fire in his belly, he was doing incredibly well given the circumstances.

'You've been unconscious for nearly fifteen hours. Given what Loki put you through the higher ups decided to wait and see what was left after all that before letting you go off and do your own thing. Here, drink up.' He helped Selvig slowly drain the glass.

  
'You ready for the medical staff to give you a going over?'

  
He looked like he'd rather wrestle a shark, but nodded. 'I just want to shower, shave, dress and get on with my work.' He yearned for normality, he positively ached for his lab.

  
The smile dropped from Clint's face as soon as the door closed behind him. He hadn't remembered Phil the whole time he'd been talking with Selvig, but now he remembered Phil was gone and the realisation sucked the air out of his lungs like he'd been gutpunched. He made it half a dozen paces before he crumpled into a ball of grief.

  
The first people who came in were medical staff, poking, prodding, measuring and generally making sure he was alright. As tiring as Erik found that it was much preferable to the second wave of Shield interrogators.

  
The first one was thin and severely dressed in black. 'Professor Selvig, what do you recall of your time in captivity at the hands of Loki Odinson?'

  
'I remember... blue. A terrible blue light forever keeping me awake and focused on the job, there was nothing but blue and the task.'

  
'Which was?' The voice was almost inflectionless and there was no expression on that ceramic white face. Selvig shuddered, wondered if that was how they looked when the thumbscrews came out.

  
'I had to build a device capable of creating a portal to the Chitauri universe.'

  
'Did you know why?'

  
A huff of despairing laughter escaped him at that. 'That is like asking a fork why it is spearing a pancake. The fork doesn't choose what it picks up...' It was a lousy analogy, but it was the best he could do with his brains still feeling scrambled. The figure stood in his peripheral vision scribbled a note at that.

  
The questions continued, eventually the first person replaced by a heavy-set Hispanic woman who rephrased all of the first person's questions, she picked his answers apart, using words like a scalpel to penetrate the fog of blue pain. He couldn't guess at how long it went on for, it felt like an aeon of verbal torture, but it was paused eventually.

  
He was allowed a break for a light meal brought in by an orderly. He fed Erik with impassive professionalism, 'Is that enough?' He asked when Erik lost interest in the beige paste that had been spooned into him. Erik nodded and the strange man cleaned Erik's face and still restrained hands with a lemon scented wet wipe. The touch was gentle but like Erik was a delicate box of components to be maintained rather than a person.

  
As soon as the orderly left another suited individual walked in. 'Describe the syntax Loki Odinson used in his orders to you.'

  
Erik huffed a not quite tearful laugh at that. 'There was no syntax. He mind controlled me, forcing me to build. I looked at the Tesseract and knew instinctively what was needed and what I needed to do. There was no technical discussion, he...' Erik closed his eyes and breathed carefully through his nose to try and quell the hysterical panic that threatened to overwhelm him. He didn't want to remember! His headache intensified and Erik tried to focus his eyesight beyond the spots dancing before his eyes.

  
'Loki implanted the compulsion, desire to use the Tesseract in my mind. Everything else ceased to matter, all that there was for me was this... atavistic need to obey the urge.'

  
'You called him Loki.'

  
It wasn't too long after that Erik lost consciousness again.

 

Tony woke up to Jarvis calling him. 'Sir, I believe this matter requires your attention.'

  
Tony pried his head from the bench he'd collapsed onto and stared blearily at the footage, then jerked upright in shock at what he saw. 'Is that Selvig?'

  
'Yes Sir, he is being detained in Shield HQ and questioned about his experience at Loki's hands.'

  
'Chained to his bed in four point leathers? He's the man who subverted mind control!' Tony's blood boiled. 'We're going to rescue him. How long have they been interrogating him?'

  
'Approximately forty hours, Sir. Dr Banner asked if Dr Selvig might be invited to join him in analysing the data yielded by Tesseract and Spear. When he had not returned to his office at the university or his apartment it became necessary to penetrate Shield's network in search of him.'

  
'Get Bruce in on this, walking into Shield in the Iron Man would probably get us shot, but Bruce and the other guy are a package deal.'

  
Steve blinked as Bruce and Tony marched through the rec room he was sat reading in. Neither man appeared to be armed, but their tight, angry body language and determined expressions told him they were going to do battle with someone. 'What's wrong, can I help?'

  
He wanted to keep this team together, drag the remnants of it back together, but they'd never trust him if he didn't back it up by supporting them. Here was his chance to start making things right.

  
Bruce stopped and turned to face him. 'It's Doctor Selvig, the scientist Loki kidnapped. Shield have him captive and have been interrogating him, keeping him chained up like an animal.'

  
That echoed with both geniuses' bad experiences, from what Steve had seen in their files, no wonder they wanted to rescue Selvig. 'Has it gone too far? Shield should get as much information from Dr Selvig as they can, but if you think it's gone beyond humane...'

  
'Cap, they're keeping a man chained up, denied his liberty while they fire question after question at him and they've been at it for days!' Tony yelled in frustration, of course Captain America would side with Shield.

  
'Let's get going.' Steve put his book down. 'Where is he being held, Tony?'

  
Bruce gave him an approving nod while Tony stared in surprise for a fraction of a second before forging ahead again. Ouch, they'd both expected him to stand by and condone the illegal incarceration of a scientist whose only crimes had been being an expert in his field and being the victim of Thor's deranged brother. It told him how unused both men were to being backed up and made him realise just how much work he was going to have to put in to forge this group of brilliant individuals into a real team. No wonder they couldn't work together as they were.

  
As they drove over to Shield New York HQ Tony had Jarvis display his findings, Bruce looking away and controlling his breathing when a short burst of video played. 'Plan?' Steve asked.

  
Jane dangled from the security guard's grasp, still pleading to be let in to see Erik and mentally cursing her decision not to call up Darcy. That taser would have come in useful round about now!

  
The security guard dropped her on her butt and Jane scrubbed away the tears of frustration threatening to fall. Erik had to be in there! But how was she going to get him home to the RV? She started to descend the stairs slowly, heading towards the nearest coffee shop to regroup only to stop dead in awe at the sight of Dr Bruce Banner, Tony Stark and Captain America striding towards her with a grim purpose that made her feel a bit starstruck. In a split second she decided to channel Darcy's chutzpah. That was her ticket in.

  
'Mr Stark, I'm Professor Selvig's student and I think they're holding him prisoner here!'

  
'You bet your sweet ass they are!' He responded and grabbed her wrist, not hard, but towing her along behind him. 'She's with us!' He barked at the security guard as he and Captain America swept through the lobby, herself and Doctor Banner in tow.

  
She looked over at the gamma scientist and he gave her a wry look as they both lengthened their stride to keep up. 'Hi.' This was so not how she'd expected to meet one of her scientific heroes.

  
'Hello, Miss...?'

  
'Uh, call me Jane.' Without breaking stride they shook hands and Jane shook her head slightly at how weird things were turning out.

  
'This way.' Tony cocked his hand hastily beckoning the others as he spun left down a corridor marked 'Unauthorized Personnel Only'. They burst out of it into a room filled with security, all pointing guns at them.

  
'You are not authorised to enter this area, please vacate the premises.' A loudhailer instructed them.

  
Tony grinned, he loved burning bridges sometimes, especially when the other side was full of assholes. 'No can do buddy.'

He stepped forward, relishing the spotlight as everyone in the room focused on him. 'We've come to visit a sick buddy of ours, Dr Erik Selvig, guy who saved the planet about three days ago... That ringing any bells?'

  
Jane joined Tony, hoping no one could tell how badly she was trembling. 'I've filed a missing persons report with NYPD, he's about so tall, in his sixties, blue eyes, greying hair. There are a lot of people worried about him and hoping he comes home soon. I'm going to have to go to the Swedish embassy for help next, my appointment with them is at two.'

  
Oh she was good! Tony's grin widened, Shield might be able to make people disappear, but that Staasi bullshit was a lot harder when people noticed and kicked up a fuss, especially when foreign governments noticed and kicked up a fuss.

  
Several of the armed personnel pressed on their earpieces and then dispersed. The rest parted to make their way for Maria Hill.  
Steve acknowledged her with a polite 'Ma'am'. Bruce and Jane both nodded with cautious politeness. Tony bounced on his toes excitedly, the cocky grin still spread across his face.

  
'Stark, do you live to make trouble for this organisation?'

  
'Only when Shield vanishes so far up its own ass that it forgets that kidnapping and imprisonment of foreign nationals without due process is hellaciously illegal. National security is one thing, but Dr Selvig has been in four point leathers for...' He cocked his head to one side as if doing the sums in his head. 'Forty six hours now and for almost twenty of those hours he has been interrogated by rotating teams of your intelligence division. That's abuse and while my international law knowledge is rusty I think it might also be a war crime. You want me to call up the UN and check?'

  
Wow, Stark was annoying on a professional level. Jane was impressed, she had thought Darcy had spunk!

The strange boss-woman stared at them for a long moment, a muscle working in her jaw before she nodded. 'We're done with Selvig, he's released into your care, but he needs to stay in New York in case we have any further questions.'

  
'You want me to post bail for him as well?' Tony asked mockingly before pushing through to the room Selvig was in. 'You two stay out here.' He instructed Jane and Steve.

'You! Find me some clothes for Dr Selvig and get his belongings sent up here.' He called to a member of staff over Jane and Steve's shoulders.

  
Bruce was already in the room, gently unbuckling the cuffs around Selvig's ankles. 'Dr Selvig? I'm Bruce Banner. I'm sorry it took so long for us to find you.'

  
Tony followed Bruce's lead and undid the wrist straps before the pair of them took one of Selvig's hands each and slowly, carefully eased him into a sitting position. Tony concealed a grimace at how cold to the touch Selvig's skin was, noticing the goosepimples dotting his flesh. He mirrored Bruce's supporting posture, realising that Banner was also subtly trying to warm Selvig with body heat, the way he leant into the older guy and wrapped an arm around his back.

  
Erik came to feeling dizzy and confused, held in warm arms that were tenderly lifting him to an upright position. Words were being said in American accented English that he was too tired to make out. He tried to focus his wavering eyesight, but he must be hallucinating, Dr Banner had been killed in an horrific laboratory accident several years ago and Tony Stark was a billionaire playboy inventor. Maybe his mind had started projecting the faces of people he'd rather meet onto the visages of his tormentors.

  
A nurse arrived with clean scrubs and detached Selvig from the drip, removed his catheter - another affront to the man's dignity. Tony and Bruce dressed Selvig and helped him stand, draping his arms across their shoulders.

  
'Oh Erik, thank God you're okay!' Jane swept him into a hug as soon as he emerged from the room and he collapsed into her, legs not holding steady after days of immobility. 'I've got you Prof.' She murmured, bracing her legs to hold his weight, feeling the violent tremors shuddering through his muscles. It was such a relief to see him alive, but poor Erik looked a physical and mental wreck! She hoped they could find a hotel for him that was still open in the wake of the battle.

  
Steve watched the scene, horror and gratitude warring. Seeing Jane's affection and care for her mentor warmed a man's soul, but the condition Selvig was in was worse than the glimpses of the man he'd caught as they'd caught their breath after the portal was closed. Tony and Bruce had been right and he was glad he'd supported them in righting this wrong.

  
'Let's get back to the tower and let you two rest up. Both of you could do with a hot bath and a long nap.' Steve suggested to Jane and Selvig, seeing the other two nodding their agreement with his assessment.

  
Pepper raised her eyebrows at Jarvis' latest memo. The tower was turning into a home for scientific waifs and strays. The place was so big that the currently undamaged levels could house dozens more without anyone feeling crowded, so she didn't mind, especially when Jarvis gave her the edited recording of Selvig's release. She asked the AI to have a few sets of clean clothes purchased for them both and had pyjamas located from stores for them in the meantime. Some time she would have to ask Tony about the storeroom of nightwear in various sizes. It was coming in handy, but it did make her wonder.

  
Jane followed Mr Stark and Dr Banner into the guest room and as Dr Banner helped Erik into the huge plush bed Mr Stark gave her the grand tour.

'Bathroom's here if you wanna wash up, there are cosy pyjamas to change into if you want. TV remote is here and there's some books and magazines over on the bookcase there. Jarvis can answer any questions you have, play music selections or project a workspace if you want to science it up in here.' He hadn't suggested she leave Erik, which Jane was glad of. She didn't want to let him out of her sight.

  
'Jarvis?'

  
'Yes Miss, how may I help?' The voice startled her and she smiled at the incongruous cultured British accent.

  
'Uh, what music have you got?'

  
Tony snorted. 'It'd be easier to ask what he hasn't. But yeah, that's not helping with the choice paralysis is it? Jarvis load up Spotify for Jane and she can have a play.'

  
'You have manipulable holographic display technology?' Jane's mouth fell open as Tony demonstrably fiddled with the projected display and pressed play on a Smurfs movie soundtrack playlist.

  
Bruce helped Erik shuffle from the bathroom back to the huge bed and straightened up. 'If either of you needs me get Jarvis to call me up.' A shy smile lit up his face. 'I'm really looking forward to hearing your findings on the Tesseract and working with you both.'

  
'Bruce, how could you? I thought we were science bros!' Tony spread a hand across his chest and flinched back dramatically. His eyes danced playfully, but Jane wondered if there wasn't an edge of truth in there.

  
'That's the wonderful thing about science Tony, the more the merrier. You said you had some ideas about super elastic?' Dr Banner humoured Mr Stark good-naturedly and they walked out together, Tony talking at hyper speed.

  
Erik was snoring already, curled on his side in a tight foetal position that didn't look comfortable. Jane swiped experimentally at the display hanging in the air, pulled it down to a more comfortable angle and navigated to JSTOR, only minimising the window accidentally a few times before she got the hang of it.

  
Bruce rotated the molecular model of Tony's compound and nodded approvingly. 'Have you got a mannequin or similar for testing purposes?' A picture of one popped up and Bruce sketched cutting it into lateral sections, mounting them on pistons to fly apart explosively like the violence of his transformations.

  
'Not yet, You, get onto that! I've been testing the elasticity by hanging weights off it, then seeing if it springs back into shape.' The robot scuttled off to begin work as the two men carried on talking.

  
'Seams would be a weak point. Jarvis, can you look up some examples of clothing construction that minimises them?' Bruce asked while Tony refined the basic expanding mannequin design, placing orders for parts from old projects he could reuse to be pulled from storage.

  
Tony busied himself, ducking his head to check his supply list and also to hide his smile. Back in his home environment and with a project to work on, the cringing body language had vanished and Bruce was speaking up clearly and with the expectation he and Jarvis would listen.

  
Jane yawned and checked the time, it wasn't all that late, but the anxiety of the past week trying to find Erik, desperately hoping he was okay had exhausted her. Jane crawled into the far side of the enormous bed fully clothed and was asleep in minutes in spite of her mentor's notorious snoring. It had been a long few days getting here.


End file.
